1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a television broadcast receiver for receiving television broadcast signals transmitted from multiple directions.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the North American Continent where ATSC (Advanced Television Systems Committee) digital television is broadcast, big cities spread across the plains. Accordingly, digital television broadcast signals, which are broadcast in big cities or their suburbs, can be received in other cities or intermediate areas between the cities. In addition, NTSC (National Television System Committee) analog television continues to be broadcast. From the viewpoint of each television user or viewer, television broadcast signals come from various directions. Thus, it is necessary for the television user to adjust the direction of an antenna in the direction of a transmission tower transmitting a television broadcast signal of a television program which the user wishes to watch.
For this reason, multi-directional antennas such as a so-called smart antenna are put to practical use. The EIA (Electronic Industries Association)-909 standard provides a smart antenna having sixteen equiangular receiving directions in 360 degrees. Multi-directional antennas which are actually commercialized have various types such as one that changes the receiving direction by rotating the antenna using a motor, and one that has multiple antennas and selects an active antenna direction by turning on and off electronic switches (the antenna themselves do not rotate).
Some of television broadcast receivers each connected to such multi-directional antenna are each set to be able to adjust the receiving direction of the multi-directional antenna, and have an omni-directional scanning function to automatically select the receiving direction of the multi-directional antenna in which a television broadcast signal of a channel selected by a television user can be best received (such receiving direction being hereafter referred to simply as “best receiving direction”).
Further, it is known to determine a best receiving direction for each channel, and preliminarily store information of the best receiving direction in a memory so as to automatically control the receiving direction of an antenna for channel selection on the basis of the stored information (refer to e.g. Japanese Laid-open Patent Publications Hei 8-250920 and Hei 4-345329).
However, according to the prior art including the two Japanese Patent Publications, it is not possible for a user to optionally set selectable channels and non-selectable channels, although it is possible to store information of each selectable channel in a memory, and to control an antenna for channel selection on the basis of the stored information. Furthermore, from the viewpoint of saving memory capacity, it is not preferable to store, in the memory, information of channels which the user does not desire to view.